Speaking of the planet Earth, there are some very quick solar energy calculations that can be made using the fact that 10,000 km is the distance from the North Pole to the Equator.
Let's suppose the Solar Constant is 1 kilowatt per square meter. Thus for every square meter of the planet Earth, we get 1,000 watts of energy. I know it is actually a bigger number than that, but I want to make the math simple. So let's look at a square kilometer. That is 1,000 meters by 1,000 meters or 1,000,000 square meters. Thus, for every square kilometer of Earth, we get 1,000,000,000 watts of energy from the Sun. All the time. For free. Except at night, but that problem can be solved using pumped water storage facilities such as are in place in Ludington, Michigan. But I digress. Now, if every square kilometer of the USA gets 1 billion watts of energy from the sun whenever the Sun shines, (about five city blocks squared or in Chicago, 25 square city blocks of area), how much does the USA get, and can we be energy self-sufficient from solar energy alone? Well, suppose the USA is 4,000 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Then 2,000 kilometers from Canada to Mexico. This gives us 2,000 times 4,000 or 8,000,000 square kilometers,. Multiply 8,000,000 square kilometers times 1 billion watts per square kilometer and we get, wow, 8 followed by 15 zeros, or 8,000,000,000,000,000 watts, certainly more energy than the USA uses in an entire year. Mark On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 10:09 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > I reached 2 Mm upon arriving to work this morning (see photo of > odometer). Two megameters is 5% of the circumfrence of Earth (see other > photo). Just for fun, have a look at this survey > https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G9YG2VX and see if you can correctly > answer quetsions 8 and 9 about riding a bike at 20 km/h (you can find other > surveys at Metric Pioneer). > > ----- Message from [email protected] --------- > Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 21:28:31 -0800 > From: [email protected] > Subject: Odometer > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> > Cc: Metric Pioneer <[email protected]> > > Greetings all. I installed a CatEye Velo 5 Bicycle Computer at end of July > 2013 CE and Friday the odometer turned a thousand kilometers. I was > inspired to take a photo, which is kind of blurry, but it reads 1000.0 on > odometer. I peddle a little over five kilometers each way to work and back, > so my daily commute is about the same distance (almost 11 km) from surface > of ocean to bottom of Mariana Trench, which is currently deepest part of > any Earth ocean. My weight was over 100 kg but since I switched from bus to > bike and started eating less, I have brought my weight down to around 90 kg > and hope to lose even more. I attach photo of blurry odometer reading and > bike (that my son bought for me on Fathers Day) with Metric Pioneer bumper > sticker proudly displayed. I would be happy to send any recipient of this > email a free Metric Pioneer bumper sticker; just reply and let me know > where to send it. Thanks. > David Pearl MetricPioneer.com 503-428-4917 > > > > > ----- End message from [email protected] ----- > > David Pearl www.MetricPioneer.com 503-428-4917 >
